Aelira twirled the rapier in her hand before locking eyes with Celeri, a frown forming on her face, “I don't want to hurt you, though…”

  “I can assure you that will not be a problem, My Highness,” Celeri said with a chuckle.

  “But…” the princess trailed off, her expression hardening. “Fine.”

  She lunged from a complete standstill. I could feel the theric coursing through her body and knew instinctively what Aelira wanted to do. I leaned into it with her, assisting the magic flowing through the crystal in my hand and into her so it would land right where she needed it.

  With her muscles enhanced, she struck forward with explosive force, only for Mistress Celeri to bat the blade to the side with a backhand. This blow knocked Aelira off balance, causing her to tumble straight into Celeri, who punched her in the face.

  The blow threw her back tumbling across the ground breathing hard, while Celeri barely looked like she had exerted herself at all.

  “I do not think Her Highness needed to be taught that lesson,” I said while heading towards Aelira to help her up.

  “She should learn it now rather than while fulfilling her duties,” Celeri said with a shrug.

  I didn’t see why the princess would need a reality check on her ego when I was pretty sure she had never developed an ego over being skilled in combat in the first place. She wasn't really the type.

  Running theric through to my hand, I reached out and clasped hands with Aelira, pushing the light through the crystal in my hand before pushing it into her. The theric seemed to buzz as I did so, resonating with my action and its intention. The red mark on her face vanished as the magic coursed through her.

  With a pull, I yanked Aelira to her feet, where she let out a yelp and jumped off the ground only to collide with the low ceiling.

  “Now that’s a lesson she needed to learn. Keeping an eye on the space around her to ensure there’s room to maneuver,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning to one side.

  “Whose side are you on?!” Aelira cried from the ground. The fact that she was still holding onto her rapier was kind of impressive, whether the magic was helping her with that or not.

  “Why yours, of course. I have no idea why you jumped,” I said, prodding her with my foot.

  “Because you shocked me,” she muttered, using a word that meant something like ‘overstimulated’ but also could be used in reference to static electricity.

  So, in conclusion, I wasn't really sure how fixing her face made her feel physically.

  This would normally be the point where I tried to pluck the sensation from her mind in order to help myself empathize, but obviously, I couldn't do that to her for whatever reason.

  “Brace yourself,” I said, picking her up by the collar, I once again shoved theric into her using the same method. Except this time, I had pointed her at Celeri.

  She bounced a couple of feet forward, but didn't go flying this time. Which, in my books, was an improvement.

  “My Highness, I would prepare to defend myself in your shoes,” Celeri announced, then reached out and seemingly grabbed the air. Using that leverage point, she launched herself forward towards Aelira.

  From behind, I grabbed the princess who had frozen in place and pulled her to the side as her instructor flew by. Taking a step into the air, I dropped her on the other side of Celeri, allowing her to press the advantage from behind.

  Celeri grabbed the air again and used it like a pole to flip her velocity around. Right into where Aelira was charging with her rapier.

  There was a blur, and suddenly her rapier was flying through the air, right before the two collided.

  Grabbing hold of the strings of theric being sent into Aelira, I deliberately sped up the pull towards the crystal. The embedded crystal started to vibrate, letting out a hum from the amount of energy moving through it.

  When Celeri hit Aelira instead of the young girl toppling over, her instructor bounced off, the gold dress covering the princess fluttering in an imaginary breeze. Holding her hand out to pluck the rapier from the air, she immediately took a defensive posture that had never been taught to her.

  I saw now why Celeri wanted to start immediately with sparring. The Resonance Stat was making it easier for Aelira to learn on the fly, as her mind began to grasp how the magic worked.

  “Good…” Celeri said from the ground, pushing herself off, she landed with a flip. She was clearly just showing off; the flip was entirely unnecessary.

  On my end, I was also starting to notice patterns; the way the light strings shaped themselves in the crystal dictated which part of Aelira was prioritized for enhancement. When she pulled her weapon from the air, several strings worked in tandem to connect Aelira with her weapon, then pulled the two objects together by reducing the amount of space between them until she could grab it off the ground as if it had flown to her.

  Then the circuit inside me suddenly ran out of light, and her dress evaporated back into her prior clothes.

  “Huh?” Aelira voiced and turned to me, a startled look on her face.

  I raised my hands in surrender, only to realize that motion didn't have the same meaning in this world. I had just requested…

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Aelira walked up to me and wrapped herself around me, “You did good, thank you,” she whispered and patted my head once before releasing me.

  I mean… okay. Cool.

  I coughed into my sleeve and sat down on the spot, my body suddenly experiencing gravity, which normally felt odd. Floating, for some reason, felt more normal than just standing on the ground.

  Celeri tossed a bottle towards me, which I snatched out of the air.

  Inside was a lump of low-quality boundstone, one of the more gravely varieties that I typically never worked with, and water.

  “This is no caelune, but it'll keep your bearer alive when you're unable to prepare a high-quality refreshment. Shake it up and knock it back whenever you feel your core running low,” Celeri said, which would be kind of difficult because I didn't have a core. I had what felt more like a closed loop that felt completely full until the moment I dimmed through the last drop of theric. “We'll prepare a set for you to carry at all times. Her Highness should never be without access to her magic at a moment's notice.”

  Looking at the bottle with a scowl, I shook it as hard as I could. The gravely boundstone crystals broke apart and dissolved into the liquid. Plugging my nose, I popped the cap and downed the bottle, only to immediately turn to the side and retch.

  There was a reason Caelune was the preferred method of consuming boundstone. This tasted like a spoonful of pure denatonium dissolved in water. Something about heating it up and using freshly ground crystals toned down the bitterness to merely unpleasant, instead of being like trying to drink antifreeze.

  “Wow, you really got all that down?” Celeri asked, and I picked up on the incredulousness in her tone. Turning to her. I wished I could dump my current sensory experience into her mind without announcing my ability to do that to the crown. If I were going to have to drink these frequently, I needed a better method than this.

  Celeri and Aelira got back to it, and I let my mind run on autopilot for a moment while I opened The Stream and searched for something to aid me.

  Any way to make drinking bottles of crushed boundstone crystals not taste awful? I’m willing to pay any price.

  There were no results within the limit of 382 Dust. But there was a message floating in the air.

  ‘Ey buddy, the Threshold limit is a little too low to get what you’re lookin' for. Lucky for yous, I knows a guy who knows a guy that can hook you up on the cheap.

  I froze and squinted at the message. Then Aelira flew past me, colliding with the wall, and I walked over to directly send magic into her. An action that I was pretty sure was healing her.

  This wasn’t the first time the System spoke to me while making a purchase. The last time it was…

  This isn’t gonna be anything like The Show, is it?

  Nah, that was an Act from a different catalogue completely. This is your Property. I can guarantee it won’t produce a raving mob of bloodthirsty corpses. If it does, I’ll refund your Dust.

  I read the message while helping Aelira up and shoving strands of theric into her.

  Wait, those were corpses? As in zombies? But their minds were—

  Details, details. You buyin’ or window-shoppin’? Two thousand Dust. One-time deal. No haggling.

  [Yes!] [Nah]

  The message interrupted me mid-typing, and the text input box vanished. A window saying my connection to The Stream had dropped, a spinning wheel indicating the System hadn’t frozen, spun at the bottom.

  Wasn’t this supposed to be an extension of my subconsciousness? How was it… whatever, not important. Glancing up, the other two weren’t paying attention to me. Aelira was busy being repeatedly beaten down, as Celeri was handling her easily

  My subconsciousness had a trustworthy cadence to it that anyone could clearly see. Also, I mean, technically, The Show had been very helpful even if it resulted in… problems. So I hit yes, because something at this price had to be useful, no matter what. Especially if it was a permanent item.

  -2000 Dust

  Dust: 4675

  Space crackled for an instant in front of me, and time seemed to slow. Reality bent, and a key was shoved from outside into the dimension. The hole was stitched up an instant later, but I could still see that something wasn’t quite the same about that spot.

  The Threshold limit existed for a reason, obviously. But, eh, what could one purchase do to screw it up? I’m sure it would be fine.

  Reaching out, I grabbed the key, which was hanging in the air as if unaffected by physics. Reality reasserted itself on contact, and I could feel a hole in space contained within the key.

  I pointed the key forward, pushed it into an imaginary lock and turned it. A cabinet door appeared midair, and opening it, there was a little space inside with pitch-black walls. That space somehow had a mental conceptualization.

  There was also a note placed in the center of the container. I closed and locked it again, then placed the key in a pouch on my hip, not that I needed to. I could feel the key was just a grasp away.

  The door vanished upon being locked. It looked like I needed to figure out how to configure the mental picture of the space to have it do what I wanted it to, which I would do in my own time later.

  Turning my focus back to the princess, I started trying to figure out how the magic system worked for me once again while assisting the princess.

  Celeri seemingly didn't notice my non-participation, since it would be weird for a regular bound to do anything. Even though when I manipulated the theric myself, she clearly had to try far harder.

  The training ended when Celeri ran out of theric herself. I ended up having to down another bottle of pure awful just to keep up.

  I wasn't sure if her gloves held far more magic than I did or if Aelira and I were burning it far faster than she did. Either way, I was going to do something about it.

  Later that night, I prepared a huge dose of caelune before sitting down with the princess at her dining table. While stirring the crystals into the pot, I added a bit of dried dreamroot. Not too much because it was strong shit, just a pinch like usual.

  “Our bond is weird,” Aelira said the moment I sat down. The room had been emptied, and the closest servant was outside the door.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked, while pouring myself a cup.

  “You aren’t sitting on a chair, you’re just floating in the air. That’s not supposed to be part of what a bonded is…” she said with a frown, taking the pot from me to serve herself.

  “Is that a bad thing?” I asked in return.

  She thought for a long moment before responding, “No, I don’t think it is.”

  I took a long sip of caelune, feeling the light rush into me, “That’s good.”

  Aelira took a sip, and a couple of minutes later, her head hit the table. Was her tolerance to dreamroot really still that weak? I definitely didn’t put that much in her tea.

  Maybe I should have accounted for the fact that she would obviously be tired from the sparring…

  I let out a sigh, finished my drink and hers, and then carried her back to her room. The ball of light bulged uncomfortably in my chest.

  While lying her down in her bed, she reached out to grab my arm in her sleep. I tried to pull away, but she was unconsciously channeling a tiny bit of theric through me, so her grip was like iron. Even trying to pull one finger off at a time wasn’t working. I tried to cut off the flow of theric, but she had complete control over it.

  Ah, fuck it, whatever.

  Pushing her to the side, I lay down and leaned into the feeling of the root, falling into a dreamless sleep.

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